From Simple Beginnings, Building Grows Into Center Of Controversy

June 13, 1985|By Jim Robison of The Sentinel Staff Jim Robison is assistant Seminole County editor for The Orlando Sentinel.

Call this a biography of a building.

Built at 1508 N. Orlando Ave. in Fern Park during the late 1960s, the single-story cinder-block structure became a dream opportunity for a New York record producer before it turned into a nightmare for the residents of nearby homes.

In its latest use -- an adult entertainment book and video store -- the building has sparked zoning violation complaints from surrounding property owners and picketing by an anti-pornography evangelist and his supporters.

This is not the building's first troubles. It has been plagued with traffic and parking problems since the mid-1970s when the Maitland Boulevard interchange at U.S. Highway 17-92 absorbed the building's highway entrance.

Originally, the building was an office for a dirt hauling and trucking company. It was later enlarged to hold a drapery business.

In 1975, John Linde, a New York song writer, record producer and publisher with a dream of creating a night spot for young people, leased the building and opened Sgt. Pepper, a non-alcoholic disco. Linde gambled that an under-21 disco would be a prime spot to introduce his new songs to the youth market.

With the help of Walt Disney World ''imagineers,'' he remodeled the building to include a Beatles' yellow submarine disc jockey control panel, a time-tunnel entrance and a ''Magical Mystery Tour'' room.

The magic, however, ran out after about four years and Linde converted his dream disco into a late-night bottle club. Owners of adjoining businesses and the residents of the nearby well-to-do Palm Cove subdivision said that was when the major traffic and parking problems started.

When Maitland Boulevard was built, the state paid the building's owner more than $106,000 for taking its highway entrance and significantly lowering the building's commercial value. Owner William Sauve of Fort Lauderdale found an alternative entrance on a side street. Patrons at the bottle club began parking along the street and causing late-night disturbances in the residential areas.

Linde's wife, Joann, said the couple began getting bomb threats and other harassment about the bottle club, its entrance and parking problems. In January the club closed.

In June, Linde, who divides his time between his New York recording business and his Winter Park home, subleased the building to New Wave Enterprises. Earlier this month, it opened Connextion, an adult book and video store.

So far, the new business has not generated traffic or parking problems, but it has generated a fair share of protests. The building's neighbors are pushing Seminole County commissioners to close the business. They say Connextion is violating the county's adult entertainment code because it is too close to a church.

So far county officials say they have not been able to determine if most of the business's video and reading materials are adult entertainment and if the county has a right to restrict Connextion's operation.

The biography of this building does not end here. The next chapter will be written this summer. That is when county commissioners review Connextion's appeal of an advisory board decision that rejected its application for adult entertainment zoning.